Monarch of Profound Toxin [Progression, LitRPG]

Eik triggered every boost he had at his disposal. His skin cracked, revealing the familiar blue streaks as Backflow pumped relentlessly through his veins, still not at full power until the actual fight began. Profound Unity would also wait until he was about to engage.

He leapt from the high branch they had been perched on and glided down on wings of blue. On the ground his army followed, coalescing into different sized beasts.

Above, the Apocalypse Canvas followed him, the new Autonomous Wanderer trait allowing it to move however he willed it. That would prove useful. Skidding to a stop a good distance from the opening, he released Profound Unity,

By the time the Apocalypse Canvas was more or less in place above the opening, two massive limbs reached up out of the hole. Each of them tapered to a needle-like points which sunk deep into the dirt and stone above. Feelers followed, darting to and fro as they searched the air.

"Shit," Eik cursed under his breath as he sped up the process. It wasn't supposed to have reacted this early. What a dumb fucking mistake.

Ideally, there would have been more time to prepare in order to get it done it one action. At once, he sent a chunk of crystalline toxin plummeting toward the opening but the thing was quick as lightning and leapt from its nest before the projectile could crash into the ground.

The opening collapsed further, narrowing it.

About two hundred meters away the hulking thing of an S-ranker landed, the momentum of its flight was hindered only by its deadly, claw-like legs churning through the ground, dust clouds rising and partly obscuring the creature.

"What the hell is that?" he muttered to himself. It was quadrupedal, plates of thick chitin running down a broad back. A thin tail four times the length of its body whipped through the air, cracks of exploding air reverberating across the flat, cleared land. It didn't look much like any animal he had seen, but if anything it resembled a mix between a turtle, a spider, and an iguana.

Extra doses of grade 5 potions were sent rocketing through his system by the trait that allowed him to store potions internally but the effects were only just beginning to take hold when the beast descended, the ground where it had stood erupting with soil and rocks as it leapt.

Thousands of shards of blue crystal fell from the Apocalypse Canvas, but the S-ranker didn't allow a single hit despite its size as it weaved almost effortlessly through the barrage of projectiles. Eik's thick shell of solid toxin broke under the extreme destructive power of the super hard limb. This was an offensive specialist against an offensive specialist.

The monster barrelled through the fragments, its scythe-like legs hacking away, feelers and beady eyes searching for the little thing that had approached its nest. But he was gone. Growling, it spun, senses telling it that the prey had left the immediate vicinity.

Shards pelted its chitin but as it stood they couldn't penetrate the tough body armor, it would take more than that to hurt it. But before it could realize what was happening, all of those projectiles suddenly lost their solidity and melted, draining into the gaps in the chitin where the beast had trouble reaching.

A ferocious burst of aura sent most of it flying but the crystalline shards were no longer falling, blue droplets like rain taking their place. They were smaller and made no real physical impact but there were too many of them to avoid no matter how fast the S-ranker could move.

But a constant release of aura kept them at bay completely. Within seconds, the immediate weather changed back to shards.

Where was that annoying little thing?

Liquid streams like strokes of paint rushing through the air suddenly crashed into its side, adding to the toxin slithering about the chitin. This variant was not so easily dispersed by aura, hanging on like stubborn flies. It was beginning to sting.

The monster let out a bestial howl that shook the land around it like an earthquake before it rocketed into the air. Pulses returned to its senses, drawing a picture of the surroundings, reaching far. There weren't many responses from living beings in the area—few would venture into its territory.

But the little pest's signature was close. Far too close. He was hiding near the mouth of the cave. Near the nest!

Pointing all four limbs forward, the S-ranker shot toward the cave like a meteor.

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Conjuring a long, thick blade of toxin, Eik held it out in front of him as he leapt out of the way. The attempt to deflect was not quite successful as numerous cuts were carved into his bare skin, cutting through both Armor of the Scourge and conventional protection. It was as if proximity to its sharp legs alone could cut.

Momentarily, the monster disappeared back into the hole, its body crushing solid rock as if it was butter. Debris flew everywhere, raising a huge dust cloud which Eik readily took advantage of.

Grunting in pain, he leapt back along the rock side to put distance between them but the monster pursued with relentless ardor, putting many more cuts in his body. Even as he maintained his boosted forms with standard blue, green Panacean Quintessence flowed over the injuries, but it just wasn't enough to counteract the extreme assault. His right arm was separated below the shoulder in an attack he didn't see in time.

Rock was crushed and cleaved with playful ease as he was hunted, enormous grooves sliced directly out of the cliff face. Gigantic, cleanly cut boulders slid out of the side of the rock behind them as they moved. It was cutting up the mountain. The destructive power was on a completely other level.

Each attack sent cracking booms echoing across the land. Residual energy from its attack hurled dust and debris into the air all around obscuring the forest all around.

It was too dangerous to go head to head with this bastard while it was at full power. Something had to be done.

Reaching for a new power he had not had the opportunity to properly test against an actual opponent yet, he released his aura, now with the addition of the Tyrant's Pressure governed by Monarch's Will.

With force ten times that of his conventional fully powered aura, the energy blasted the S-ranker with a concentrated squall. A deep, reverberating rumble accompanied the phenomenon, arresting the beast's advance at once.

Fuck, that was effective. But it would last no more than a moment.

Taking advantage of the brief immobilization, he pushed all physical limits to the maximum and dashed for the opening. With Eyes of the Beast he had seen before that there was something down there. Something the S-ranker would lay down its life to protect.

As he ran, he threw up one large shell after the other to obscure him from the beast's line of sight but it soon soared into the air, locating him in an instant. He jumped for the opening as it shot for him again, repeating the same dive as before.

Eik both felt and heard the impact behind him as he plummeted into the darkness, Profound Toxin flowing up behind him to seal shut the tunnel. Less than a second later the S-ranker crushed the hastily built barrier as it pursued him but another shell was already snapping into place further down.

Three more times they repeated that dance of creation and destruction until, finally, the S-ranker saw no new barrier after breaking through the fifth one. Good.

This was its territory. And that little vermin would never see the sun again.

But where was the pest? Eyes used to the darkness scanned the cavernous interior of the tunnel but could not locate the man. Another sonar went out, searching for life.

Momentary panic jolted through the beast as its armored head whipped up toward the surface. The only thing down here was a puny blue serpent falling helplessly through the nothingness.

"Moron," Eik chuckled as he looked down into the pit, the shape of the colossal skitterer vaguely visible below as it frantically realized what he had done. It immediately exploded upward with a high pitched screech.

"Fell for the oldest trick in the book," he snorted, then tilted his head from side to side. "All right, maybe not the oldest trick, but…" He took two steps back from the mouth of the tunnel as a titanic blade of blue plunged right past the tip of his nose, narrowly missing the edges of the mouth of the opening.

Connected to the Profound Toxin as he was, he felt the moment it hit the monster and carried it downward. Three more crystalline swords followed into the depths before he plugged up the hole, this time with a much thicker layer of toxin which continuously expanded downward, all the while releasing copious amounts of liquid poison to flood the tunnel.

The beast had been damaged enough for its system to be properly invaded. The ground shook as it raged below, howling and thrashing. It was hurt and would grow weaker with every second exposed to the potent toxin, but it would not take long before it dug its way back out.

Preparing for the imminent clash, Eik conjured a long cylinder, close to twenty meters in length. With a barrel no broader than fifteen centimeters he hollowed out the inside, leaving both ends open for now.

A harness solidifying around his torso allowed him to support the pipe on his shoulder effortlessly as he adjusted the balance to perfection. The idea was to rebuild something he had already successfully built and used before only with different measurement, and with a different thing going inside—specifically something that was not named Eik Magnasen.

A small, flat plate of crystal, the circular shape of which fit perfectly along the hollow shaft was installed within. It was pushed gradually up through the length of the cylinder as an army of tiny little Profound Toxic beasts clambered up into the pipe, squishing together like living tapioca pearls at the bottom of a cup of bubble tea.

Once about seven meters of the twenty meter barrel had been filled up with squirming little guys, he started working on the projectile.

At this point the S-ranker was about to crash up through the ground at any second. It had taken it no more than a couple handfuls of seconds but he could follow its rise up through the earth through the Profound Toxin surging through its system. He would have to work faster.

A bipod supported the cylinder on the ground as Eik pointed one end at the point where the monster was most likely to emerge and sealed the other end completely, trapping the numerous Living Manifestations inside between the sealed end and the flat plate.

A five meter long spear formed inside, reinforced and hardened as much as he could. Taking a deep breath, he put his eye to the primitive scope along the top and took aim.

That fucker was welcome anytime now.